Quora for Business? (And Other Social Media Blog Jots)

Quora keeps popping up more and more in my feeds, and I still don’t really have a great grasp of how I might use it. I know it involves questions and answers, but all it does for me whenever I notice it mentioned on other social channels is elicit more questions. Why is Quora useful? What sets it apart from other question/answer social platforms, or even Facebook’s “Questions” feature? Will it be useful for businesses, and should they pay attention?

Not really having the time (or, frankly, interest, as someone who tends to be a bit of a social purist in sticking mainly to Facebook and Twitter these days) to dig into these answers on my own, I was grateful to see a terrific post from Jeremiah Owyang this week that addresses all these questions and more. New to Quora, curious how it could help you? Definitely check out Jeremiah’s post.

On to the Jots!

Quora For Business? – Jeremiah Owyang – Confused about how Quora may be useful to you? Look no further. In a fairly comprehensive post, Jeremiah explains some of Quora’s features and urges businesses not to be scared off by the fact that it does not currently support corporate accounts. “While corporate accounts are not currently allowed, personal accounts are, and most people who are in Quora work at a company and you see them answering questions about their company. Send your Community Managers (you have them, right?) into this emerging Q&A sites as they would other sites, to monitor and respond if questions go awry. Glean intelligence by creating an excel sheet and creating a list of the top asked questions related to your brand and use to fuel internal discussions around why these questions are asked, and cascade to the appropriate product and service teams to fix.”

Leadership Lessons from Martin Luther King – Priya Ramesh – In honor of celebrating Martin Luther King Day earlier this week, Priya Ramesh discusses what we can learn from his legacy. Social media has become, to a certain extent, about “rock stars,” but how many of them are great leaders as well? She also highlights King’s impressive communications ability. “Understand not all of us can be great public speakers but we can definitely work on message delivery. Do you remember that manager that had all the fancy degrees in Marketing but failed miserably in getting his team to dream big and achieve higher results? Yes we all have had one of those in our career but then I also remember the ones that were so good at persuading us to go that extra mile. King’s oratorical skills surely served as an ignition to build the Civil Rights movement. We as leaders within our organization can learn from that to be persuasive communicators that bring in a sense of excitement to projects versus a dull outlook.”

What You Need To Know about Facebook Email – Scott Monty – In a development that eludes me still, Scott found he’s been transitioned to the new Facebook messages system, including a Facebook.com email address. I’ve been interested in this for a while, and his post outlines the basics of the new offering, but questions how many will switch from Gmail (I agree with Scott that I likely won’t, at least not yet). He also questions Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s contention that the teen audience inspired the switch. “Using high schoolers as a focus group for the future of a multi-billion dollar company? While I understand that they’re on the cutting edge of what’s next and that they’ll be the users of the future, my traditional self cringes a little about the notion of basing your success on the tastes and proclivities of such a young generation. Particularly when they have yet to fully grasp the habit of good writing, functional grammar, and the ability to fully express their thoughts.”

Social Media Cowbell – Ike Pigott – I will, as a general rule, highlight ANY blog post that features Will Ferrell in the “More Cowbell” sketch. If you want to be the in the Jots that is really all you have to do. [Ed. Agreed!] But it helps that this post from Ike is truly great, as he uses the cowbell as a metaphor to point out that social media should be just one part of your entire marketing and PR rock band. “The reason there are no renowned Cowbell artists is related to the same reason there are no famous painters who only work in yellow. It takes more than a rhythm to carry a song – it takes more than a single color to carry useful information – and it takes more than a tool (Social Media) to make your marketing program successful.

The people who are telling you that you can gain fans and groupie love through the employ of just a Cowbell just happen to be the same people who have a Cowbell they’d like to sell you. (Or maybe, just maybe, they’ll offer to play the Cowbell for you, for a price!)”